Murder Mysteries
by afriendtosell
Summary: [Timeskip] After an ambush from the Akatsuki sends Naruto to the hospital, Jiraiya is forced to examine where he went wrong. Can he make amends with his life, himself, and the man who betrayed them to save Naruto's life before it's too late?
1. Today is not my day

A/N: _Italics in large clumps_ denote flashbacks. Also, updates to come every week on Friday or Saturday if I can help it.

A/N 2: The story is not in first person, for those of you who care.

XXX

Tagline: (Timeskip) After an ambush from the Akatsuki sends Naruto to the hospital, Jiraiya is forced to examine where he went wrong. Can he make amends with his life, himself, and the man who betrayed them to save Naruto's life before it's too late?

XXX

Murder Mysteries

a Naruto fanfiction  
by Pridefall

Disclaimer: I own nothing except what is mine.

XXX

**Chapter 0 – Today is not my day.**  
_"It's a simple formula. The greater the tragedy, the greater the emotional effect."  
- _Legato (Trigun)

XXX

This hasn't been my day.

I didn't exactly _mind_ wakin' up with a hangover, really. Been there, done that more times than I can imagine. The kid, though? That's a different story. He makes havin' a hangover seem like a bloody jackhammer straight to the skull, and that shit I cannot get behind. I'm sorry, but no – Arashi's son or not, hearing Naruto bitch about how badly his head hurt for hours on end was _not_ my cup of tea.

So I left.

He harped on enough about it, I'm sure, but he was a big boy. He could take care of himself. I told him I'd be back soon enough and that if he were done with his new technique by the time I got back then I'd teach him a new one _without_ leaving him alone to master it this time.

It was a lie of course, but it got him to shut up and gave me the rest of the day free.

I took some time to myself in one of the nearby towns. Thought it coulda been time for me to maybe relax, maybe get some reading/work done or meet something pretty with legs. Me 'n the kid 'been chasing a lead I got from one of my informants about one of the Akatsuki – which, thankfully, the kid didn't know anything about – and…well…Let's just say the few dead _pieces_ of my informants that I've been finding after contacting my first informant seemed to be more of a _warning_ than a coincidence, okay?

I needed a break. They knew we were after them. They knew that I was trying to gather information on them, and they were targeting my spy-network to stop me in my tracks. I needed to move fast, but more importantly, I needed to move _smart_.

With Naruto, that'd be hard to do.

_Stay here and practice. I'll be back tonight with food._

_Hey, wait! Don't fuckin' leave again you damn pervert! Hey! Come back here! _

…

_Fuck you!_

The kid didn't follow me into town, which was bully for me since about noon-ish I hit the jack-pot. I'd been feeling his chakra signature hang around the village's I'd been chasing him through in the past, but today, damn…Today it came in at full-blast – dark, insidious, blood-stained; the mark of an Uchiha.

He was _here_.

_Shit yes_.

I've been waiting for this. Every time we've hit a major city, even though it seems like we're two steps behind him in this rat-race I swear that I can _feel_ this bastard _somewhere_ close, somewhere _near_, like he was breathing down my neck; but, and here's the kicker -- I have _no clue_ where in the fuck he comes from. It's like he just _appears_ whenever I start looking for him, and then promptly disappears; slipping through the cracks right when I think I have him.

Today, though, it feels like he fucked up. I can _sense_ it. He's somewhere close. Somewhere _very_ close, but wherever he's moving, it's too fast, he's moving too haphazardly through the town to mark his presence. I'd like to think that karma's finally caught up to him, that maybe his partner's gotten them into more trouble than they can handle and now the Uchiha has to save both of their asses.

But that's just wishful thinking, really.

The ground shakes beneath my feet. In the distance, a gargantuan plume of smoke rises towards the skyline like a sulfurous blast from a too-large furnace.

_Fuck! Naruto's…Shit. Why practice __**that**__ technique?_

The Akatsuki pair seemed to take notice of this, but they're still running in the opposite direction. _Away_ from Naruto. I could attack them now, just to be safe, but…

_I'm going to be staying __**here**__. If you don't come get to me by __**tomorrow**__ I'm fucking gone, man. And, Jiraiya, don't __**fucking**__ be stupid and look for me. You know the drill – I find you, not the other way around._

…My informant came first. I'm sure Naruto would've screamed bloody murder at me for thinking that, and I'm sure he would've loved to take one of the spiraled-eyed freaks on – was it the elder of the youngest that he hated? – but, shit. I gotta think about the good and the bad first. If Ari, my informant, died, then that'd be one less person I could trust in the world.

And trust mattered to me a lot more than some Akatsuki punk.

Yeah, sure. Let's go with that.

It didn't take long for me to get far enough into the whorehouse to talk with someone who would point me in the right direction. She was barely, what, fifteen? And of course she

might've _looked_ older - expertly applied make-up, so the pimp running this place kept a big momma around - but, still...I think the girlie thought it was some sort of blessing that I just wanted to talk; that I didn't want _that_ and that I didn't go _that_ way.

The bruises around her neck told me as much.

Oh yeah, where was I?

"You ever heard of vampires?" I mention to her somewhere between taking a sip of sake and watching her brush long, floor-length blonde hair that doesn't need to be pampered anymore like it owed her money.

Her shoulders freeze and she stops what she's doing for a moment; looks as if she lets the word sink in, and then, quietly, she mouths. "Vam…pires?" to my reflection in her mirror; the way her eyes flicker back and forth making it more statement than question

I sit back and watch her, trying to keep my face neutral. She knows something, I can feel it, but I can't let her know that. For all of the bad rap they got for their jobs, whores were smarter than most men gave them credit. "Yes, Vampires. Have you ever heard of them?"

"I've… never really..." she stutters, grabbing an end of long hair and twirling it between her fingers nervously, and for a moment all I can think of is that she looks _exactly_ like Tsunade did when she tried to cover for me after I dropped a bucket of paint on old-man Sarutobi's head.

_He can see right through her, I think, and when I take a step back to try and get away he's __**there**__. So fucking fast, man, and he looks so __**mad**__, and I think, shit, but say it was funny wasn't it?, and I find myself tied to a fucking tree. __**Again**_

I shake my head free of the memory and try to stay grounded in the present. Damn alcohol. "You've never really what?"

She seems to shrink, her gaze dropping from my reflection to the floor and her hands pooling in her lap. I can tell the poor girl's been scarred somewhere in her past from the way that silence seems to creep into our conversation without being invited. "I don't think...I don't think I'm allowed to tell you about other customers…"

I sigh, trying to hide the small shock of happiness that runs up my spine. She let something slip without meaning to. Yes. "I'm not gonna tell anybody sweetheart, I'm just..." I shuffle my way towards her and put my arms around her waist. I know it's wrong - Gods help me, it's fucking _wrong_ -- but if she didn't respond quick enough to simple questions then maybe I could cajole the information out of her with something physically friendly. "...Looking for a friend."

She goes still. Utterly and completely dead-body still. Something in the back of my head tells me I've gone too far, but I need _something_ out of her so I go even farther. "Come on, babe, it's not like I'm gonna hurt you. Just tell me what I wanna hear..."

Something seems to snap inside of her, and I feel a shudder run up her spine. I'm about to back off and away from her when she takes in a shuddering breath and starts to cry.

Oh fuck. "Hey?"

"D-don't!"

I reach over to her and take her chin into my hand. Instinctually, she tries to wrest control away from me and I let her, feeling like a jackass all the while.

I hate doing this to her.

"...Sweetie, I might look old, but I'm not-"

"You're just like all the rest!"

I knew pressing the matter would get me nowhere. Still…I really needed to know where that piss-poor informant was, and I needed it quick. I put an arm around her and tried to put on as much of my bastard-charm as I could while ignoring the growing sense of unease in my stomach.

"S'right if you don't know much about 'im, lovely. But, if you _could_ point me in the direction of _this_ man I'll leave ya be." I pull out a fat roll of Ryou and let her get a good look at it. "You also get this."

Her face lights up.

Jesus H. Christ I am a _bastard._

She takes the Ryou without hesitating. I take that as a sign that she's willing, and I show her a faded picture of my informant. She delicately takes it into her hands, turning it over slowly; meticulously, and even though I knew her eyes lit up more out of fear than recognition, I had her. She had seen Ari; was probably one of his regular mules, from the way her neck was colored, and if Ari was here than the Akatsuki couldn't be far behind.

Nuke-nin they might've been, but they weren't stupid. Ari made a fucking mistake and now I had to save his ass.

"I…"

She looked so small. So fragile. It was hard to believe that she was also lying to me, but she was.

"Beautiful, if you _do_ know where this man is…"

She didn't even say anything; just made a noise somewhere between 'no' and 'nu-uh'

_Shit_.

"I know it may be hard, but you gotta tell me where this man is."

"H-how w-would I k-know...?"

My fists clenched at my sides. The bastard was here; close, and…

Breathe.

"Listen kid, he has some information I want. And maybe, in return for helping him, I can convince him to stop doing some things."

At this, I point towards her neck, which she tries to hide quickly and surreptitiously. She's flustered, obviously, and a bit torn between her fear and possible "salvation", so I squeeze her shoulder comfortingly while trying to ignore her wince and slip her another fifty Ryou.

She seems to bolster herself. Good girl.

"He's…"

There's another explosion, though this one rocks the foundations of the whorehouse. I rush over to the window and there, off in the distance, I see it, a giant plume of smoke reaching towards the sky, and my insides knot.

_Fuck_. _Naruto can't do that technique more than once._

"Wait! I think he's…!"

I'm out the window before she even finishes her sentence.

XXX

To Be Continued

XXX


	2. To err is human

Tagline: (Timeskip) After an ambush from the Akatsuki sends Naruto to the hospital, Jiraiya is forced to examine where he went wrong. Can he make amends with his life, himself, and the man who betrayed them to save Naruto's life before it's too late?

XXX

A/N: I'm posting this early since the new Harry Potter book comes out when I would normally post a new chapter. Also, for those of you who are interested my livejournal (which you can find at my profile) usually updates with a preview of the newest chapter a day before it comes out here, so, by all logic...

Previews on Thursdays at pridefall(dot)livejournal(dot)com  
And new chapters on Friday, here.

XXX

Murder Mysteries

a Naruto fanfiction  
by Pridefall

Disclaimer: I own nothing except what is mine.

XXX

**Chapter 1 – To Err is Human.**  
_"You try to sound like you think things through, when in fact you're not thinking at all."  
- _Kurama (Yu Yu Hakusho)

XXX

From the very first moment that Jiraiya set his eyes on his newest protégé, the Toad-Sannin realized that there was something inherently tragic, beautiful, and wrong about what kind of shinobi Uzumaki Naruto made himself out to be. He was stubborn and careless; he was prideful and arrogant, and worst of all he was a teenager with a moody demon inside of him and a chip the size of the Hokage's Monument sitting on his shoulder.

Neither of these things led to a conductive training regime. More often than not Naruto would just tell Jiraiya he could do it himself after seeing a technique demonstrated once. And though his father had been the same way in lesser degrees – sans the demon, of course; and Arashi was smarter – but the fact of the matter was that the Kyuubi, more than anything else in his life made Naruto _different_.

Painfully.

Obviously.

_Different._

They'd been traveling together for a little over a year when Jiraiya stopped thinking about Naruto in terms of being 'just' a student and started thinking about the blonde in terms of who he was. It wasn't an epiphany he was happy with having, since the first thought that came to him about the teen was unfortunately, that he was a _demon_.

_Eyes like fire bear down on him, searing him, boring into him as the skies part and the fires spreads, contorts, and screams to the heavens __**I am Come**_

Then, of course, he woke up from his nightmare and looked over the fire. There was the loud-mouth brat, sleeping like a child; drooling slightly and making small, annoyed sounds every so often. This is who Naruto was, to him. This was who Jiraiya wanted the brat to keep being, in his mind.

_Look! Look! HA! I finally got it you old bastard! I got it without your help! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!_

_Good, now we can leave, right?_

_Are you CRAZY! I need to try this out right now!_

Jiraiya didn't know how to handle the difference between one or the other. He could train soldiers; he could mold Genin, but teaching a child starved for attention with something to prove?

No fuckin' way. Jiraiya didn't believe in lost causes.

He had played along when they first met, but over time something had changed between them. Naruto…he just learned differently from most. Though he did not adhere to the things Jiraiya taught him, he absorbed the basics of every lesson faster than he inhaled ramen -- acting one-part fool, one-part savant, and all parts hyperactive teenager gunning for the stars. As the Sanin grew to further understand his charge, he learned that everything about the boy was a contradiction; as if, somehow, part of him wanted to succeed but another part -- a part that seemed far more primal and instinctual than the first -- wanted Naruto to fail, and to fail spectacularly at that.

He had learned how to be a Summoner in a month; learned how to use Rasengan in a week. His newest technique, one wholly self-devised and created, took him less than a day to master. Too late, Jiraiya learned that Uzumaki Naruto was a genius of a different sort; a walking time bomb constantly on the verge of an explosion, and Jiraiya was the only one left who could try to diffuse him.

It was this knowledge; this…almost inherent understanding of how shinobi like Uzumaki Naruto got killed long before they got smart enough to take care of themselves that told Jiraiya that looking after Naruto; that training him and loving him as a son would eventually kill him. The larger part of his mind wanted to deny it -- really, _really_ deny that Naruto was all that different from any other student he had had over the years -- but despite putting him through hell and back again, Jiraiya _knew_ that this was not the case.

Naruto was not a kunai. He could not be sharpened into perfection – he had to be forged that way.

Konoha had failed in that respect. Jiraiya didn't know exactly what it was about the blonde that made him think this - and he knew that he would, perhaps, _never know_ – but somewhere between training the blonde for a little over a year and watching him mature from a loud-mouthed brat to an (almost) competent shinobi underneath his tutelage, Jiraiya realized that what he _did_ know about Uzumaki Naruto equated to three very simple facts.

1. Uzumaki Naruto was not a demon.

2. Uzumaki Naruto was not a shinobi.

3. Uzumaki Naruto would _die_ trying to prove the latter wrong and the former _right_.

It was not his faux-grandson's need to prove the impossible to everyone he met that spurred these thoughts, nor was it his tendency to run into battle headfirst and damn anyone who told him he was wrong for doing so. The fact that he had the most powerful demon in all of history sealed inside of his stomach and that the very same demon robbed him of his family and gained him an entire _villages-worth_ of animosity didn't matter, either.

No, Uzumaki Naruto was _better_ than that.

Far better.

So when they were attacked by Akatsuki – ambushed, really, and admitting fault to it _hurt_ more than Jiraiya would ever admit – Jiraiya realized that even though everything that Uzumaki Naruto **was** contributed to what was happening to him **now**, _it was __all his fault for failing him in the first place._

XXX

_Life happens in moments._

_It is in the moment that he wakes to a grey, cloud-obscured sunrise from a nightmare that he has spent thirteen years suppressing that Jiraiya feels that something about the coming day is…amiss._

_(He pushes the fear aside.)_

_It is in the moment that he feels the ground rock and sees a small plume of smoke rush up towards the sky somewhere near the horizon – and nearer still to the campsite Naruto and he shared -- that he feels his fears compounded, but possibly unmotivated._

_(Naruto could have been messing around with his new jutsu.)_

_It is in the moment that he sees someone resembling the eldest Uchiha brother casually (but brusquely) waltz through the crowd in front of him as he is leaving town to find out why a second plume of smoke was in the sky that Jiraiya knows something is terribly, terribly __**wrong**__, and finally __**acts**_

_Jiraiya is running and cursing himself._

_**Senile**_

_**Complacent**_

_**Shoulda seen…**_

_Then, Gamabunta is flying._

_Life happens in moments._

_Today happens in minutes._

_Jiraiya has neither._

_He does not know where he made a mistake, but he knows that somewhere, somehow, he _did

_Akatsuki and betrayal._

_Both are disgusting words, but they fit what's happening all too perfectly._

_Jiraiya does not want to admit this to himself. For the sake of the empire of informants he has spent the better part of thirty years creating, he does not want to believe that he has been double-crossed in such a masterful way -- that one of his own would…_

_He clenches his fist._

_It _hurts

_He doesn't want to think about it._

_So he doesn't, and he internalizes his rage._

_It is his fault that this is happening._

_He knew that the Akatsuki were after them. _

_He knew that they would come for Naruto the moment he left the blonde alone._

_He berates himself for it. He should have known better._

_And yet…And yet a small part of his brain says: 'It isn't your fault.'_

_The lack of knowledge, the lack of forewarning, means that the double-cross was done quickly. _

_Recently._

_Only one man knows where Jiraiya is at any given moment._

_He focuses on that name._

_Focuses _**hard**.

_With every passing moment that the rain slaps his back and the tree line continues to thin out but does not_ **open **_to the clearing where Naruto and he were camping in_, _Jiraiya curses that name and tries to push Gamabunta that much harder._

_The Toad notices this, and says: "We'll get there in time. Even if I have to cut my way through this entire fucking forest, _**we'll get there in time**_."_

_The Sannin only nods, grits his teeth, and whispers: "__**Go faster**__."_

XXX

Jiraiya sat in the open window of the room Uzumaki Naruto was being kept at inside of Konohagakure Hospital. Behind him, the sun was setting -- the failing light sending hundreds of shadows stretching across the ground and cutting his outline out from the rest of the room in a golden, human-shaped swath.

While the scene was…poetic, almost, Jiraiya had no desire to be there. If anyone took a chance to ask him why this was or what he was doing in Konoha when his work normally took him away from village, he would calmly (and perhaps a little emotionlessly) say that he was listening to Naruto breathe.

_In_…

…**Out**

_In_…

…**Out**

_In_…

Jiraiya held his breath. Naruto's breathing was rhythmic – almost painfully so -- but shallow, as if he were trying to suck in too much air through a small, invisible straw. The Sannin didn't think much of it (he had seen people in the hospital who looked _much_ worse), but it still bothered him.

This was not the Naruto he knew.

He was too still.

Too _quiet_.

This was not _his_ Naruto.

"Wake _up_, dammit."

Even though the blonde's body looked fine, even though his vitals were outstanding and he was the picture of perfect health, _this was not his Naruto_.

'_Wake up, wake up, wake __**up**__.'_

His Naruto was not a _coma patient_.

"…If you don't wake up I'm going to…Fuck, I don't even know anymore kid. I can't stand seeing you like this." The Sannin looks over the machinery monitoring Naruto's vitals. It had been close to five months since he had opened his eyes. Another two since he had even mumbled anything in his sleep.

'_Say something!_'

Nothing has changed.

"This is…Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck fuck…Argh!"

Jiraiya hated it.

The stillness.

The silence.

_Hated it._

Yet he couldn't leave.

_Wouldn't_.

"Say something!"

And even if he couldn't do anything about it directly, the Sannin kept himself busy in the meantime.

(If it was out of either guilt or love, he didn't know.)

His schedule went like this.

When they (i.e. Tsunade) didn't need him to babysit Naruto, Jiraiya was busy trying to rebuild what was left of his broken spy network while working at finding a cure for whatever was keeping Naruto from healing (both naturally and demonically) from whatever had happened to him after the two Akatsuki had ambushed them at the same time.

It was hard, tiring work with very little payoff, but Jiraiya was used to it by now. His life had been harder before he hit fifty, and trying to fix things was much easier than breaking them.

If you had the right pieces.

Which he didn't.

Days blurred into months.

Two without word

Three without letter.

Four, and here they were now.

Then, an informant in the Waterfall (a chakra expert who Jiraiya had sent Naruto's chakra-system scans to when normal testing and cellular repair-work turned up nothing) had professed to the Sannin that the coma wasn't natural. It was chakra based, and it worked on a cellular level like a sort of poison, or virus.

_Well why can't you fix it, then?_

Except it was neither.

_Because we do not know what it is._

No known jutsu attacked the chakra pathways connecting the brain to the rest of to body, making whoever was infected with it essentially…Well, the blonde wasn't quite _brain-dead_ – he could still register normal brain activity when scanned for it – but he also wasn't quite…there.

Tsunade had done her best when she had heard the news. She had to have known she couldn't fix that kind of damage, but she tried anyway.

'…_He won't wake up. He won't wake up… He! Won't! Wake! Up! How do I even know I'm doing the right thing if he __**won't even wake up**__!'_

Love made you do things like that, Jiraiya guessed.

'_I'm sure he'll-'_

'_This is your fault!'_

'_Tsunade…'_

'_Don't touch me!'_

'_He's going to be fine. The training I gave him should help him manipulate the Ninetails even better than he used to. And you _know_ the Fox won't let him die.'_

'…'

'…_Tsunade?'_

'…_Get out.'_

She hadn't talk to him in full sentences after that, and until recently, Jiraiya had no leads reliable enough to follow to use as an excuse to talk to her. When she did need him, though, he stayed by Naruto's side and prayed for him to wake up and, if nothing else, open his mouth and _speak_.

'_I can't take this anymore.'_

He missed the brat's voice. The silence in the room, more than anything, bothered him more than he would admit. No amount of piety or spy-work could change that. And after the first few days of hearing nothing, the Sannin had all together given up on just _listening_ to Naruto breathe.

Now he was counting how many times he _stopped_ breathing.

…**Out**

Morbid, but that made six.

Jiraiya stood up and began to pace back and forth. He looked haggard, tired, and _worn, _as if he hadn't slept in days, and the truth was that he _hadn't_.

None of them had.

Kakashi was probably the worst off, seeing as Jiraiya had had to replace the Jounin as Naruto's nighttime keeper. The silver-haired dog-nin had just _snapped_ one night after the first week of staying with Naruto through his coma, and had walked down to the reception area of the Hospital with a chidori in his hands that he used to blow out the entire southern wall of the hospital.

The reason for it was night terrors, Tsunade had said.

'_What does it mean? He wasn't sleep-walking when we apprehended him.'_

'_It's not that simple. Because of the Sharigan, his mind works differently from ours.'_

'_Meaning?'_

'_It means he couldn't distinguish faces from memories when he's so distressed. Seeing Naruto in such a state probably triggered something he repressed back in his ANBU days, I'm guessing."'_

Jiraiya could sympathize.

After the first diagnoses, they had thought (and said, profusely) that the coma was just a form of shock and that the blonde would come around eventually.

"His system needs time to recuperate from what happened", Shizune had said when a month passed and Tsunade wouldn't answer Jiraiya's questions anymore.

Then Jiraiya's diagnoses came, and well…That was two months ago.

Which made it three months that he and Tsunade weren't speaking to each other.

Three long, long months.

Jiraiya had always hated hospitals.

Part of him wanted to blame it on his work. Another, perhaps far more _rational_ part of him, wanted to blame it on the fact that every time he was in a hospital he felt distinctly _uncomfortable_; as if he were less than a hairs-breadth away from death and could do nothing to stop it.

Jiraiya didn't like that feeling. Didn't like it at _all_. He was a creature of comfort, and even though it seemed childish, even though it seemed irrational for a man who risked his life almost daily to be afraid of the thing that kept him alive, somewhere between the cold, sterilized air, the soft thrum of heartbeats, and the faintly sweet smell of dried blood masked by potent cleaning detergents, it felt as if there was little else Jiraiya _could_ be except uncomfortable.

The way Tsunade stared at him as she entered the room, sat down, and began to go over her work did nothing to help how relaxed he was, either.

"I'm just here to make sure you don't get him killed." Tsunade said curtly before burying herself into her work.

Jiraiya ran a hand down his face. '_Don't say anything. Don't say anything.'_

"Good. I hope you stay like that."

He ignored her. It was childish, but it helped him focus on the task on more important matters. On the reason why his thoughts and self-narrative were doting on everything except for the matter at hand.

A week ago, Jiraiya had received a letter biding him to go west for "answers".

'_How in the Hell am I going to convince her that this isn't a trap when she won't even speak to me?'_

The letter was from an informant that had died thirty years ago.

'_Or more importantly, that this is legit_.'

It was his _only_ lead after almost six months of searching.

'…'

Tsunade would _never_ believe him.

'_Fuck_.'

Even considering that the letter might have been legit was an obvious trap. If it was a fake then he'd be walking to his death. If it was real…why would it be real? It had to be a trap.

Had to.

And yet now that everyone seemed at a loss on what to _do_ with the blonde, Jiraiya was considering it.

"Jiraiya."

Considering it so seriously it frightened him.

"Jiraiya."

The Sannin's head snapped to attention.

"Yeah?"

The Fifth sat at the table opposite of Jiraiya, one leg crossed over the other while her chin rested on one of her hands. A copy of the same letter Jiraiya had received a week ago lay next to the cup of coffee sitting by her elbow, opened and slightly crumpled at the edges as if she had looked at it once and then tossed it aside.

"You know he hasn't woken up since you brought him here, right?" Her words cut him through to the marrow, her voice somehow half angry and half accusing.

"Yea, I do." The Toad-Sannin mumbled underneath his breath, already seeing where this conversation was going to end up.

Tsunade didn't even look at him. "And you still don't know _why_, right?"

Jiraiya sighed. "Exactly." Years of experience with women and he still didn't know when to shut his mouth.

Tsunade straightened, the pen in her hand making a small cracking noise. "He's been here almost six months, and you _still don't know why_."

Jiraiya had been beaten, asphyxiated, burnt, cut, stabbed, and flash-frozen (among other things) throughout his entire career as a shinobi of the Leaf, but having Tsunade fix her gaze on him and talk to him as if it were _his_ fault that Naruto was in a coma was quite possibly the worst of all of them.

"From the way the Seven-Pointed Seal _should_ work if the Kyuubi gets out of hand, and if he doesn't get miraculously better sooner rather than latter, then I wouldn't expect him to wake up anytime soon." Jiraiya stated flatly from the windowsill of the room, his voice sounding almost as tired as he was.

Tsunade's gaze trailed back and forth between Naruto – who was lying down on the bed next to her -- to the letter that Jiraiya held in his hand. She hadn't slept in days either and it showed.

Exhaustion gave way to anger.

"Do you have any idea as to _why_ this happened, or is your little network of information _that_ unorganized?"

Jiraiya blinked and stuffed down the knot that was forming in his throat. "Aside from this letter that we both have, no. I don't have any more leads."

Though Jiraiya could imagine that Tsunade had already opened her letter and read its…contents…the Fifth looked as reserved as usual -- her legs crossed, her smile held in a tight line, her voice perfectly even.

"Great. Just…fucking great."

Everything in place, perfectly.

He felt like he needed to be perfect for her, too, and that meant trying to calm her down. "…The truth is, and I've told you this, I'm not to blame here. I could've have pushed the boy too far when we trained, sure, and-"

Tsunade looked at him now, and her gaze was searing. "Stop right there."

Jiraiya couldn't tell for the life of him if the small frown she had on her face had anything to do with her genjutsu failing for a moment or the fact that the teenager lying not four feet away from her was Naruto, but from the way her eyes flashed towards him once he started his sentence he could tell that if he didn't finish what he was about to say in a way Tsunade liked he would be introduced to a world of pain.

He gave it a shot anyway.

"- and yet, his seal shouldn't have deteriorated as quickly as it did when he activated the Kyuubi's tails. Shouldn't have _kept_ deteriorating as much as it is."

"But it _is_, Jiraiya, and-"

"I know, alright!" the Sanning shouted, his voice carrying down the walls of the ICU. Tsunade stared at him, half-angry and half-defiant, as if telling him to sit back down or jump out the window. "…I…" Jiraiya swallowed. "…I know how it looks, alright? I _know_, and I'm _trying_."

The Lady-Hokage crossed her arms across her ample chest. "You aren't trying hard enough." She stated, obviously indignant.

Jiraiya didn't go speechless so much as entirely _deflate_. "I…"

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Stop babbling to me about things we already know about and fix it."

It took a moment for her words to register. "_What?_"

She looked at him as if he had spouted another head. "You heard me. _Fix it_."

The complexity of what she had just asked him, the way she had controlled everything he had done ever since Naruto went under and how little information Jiraiya had…He snapped. "Wait, _what_? How in the _fuck_ do you expect me to do that_ Tsu_-"

She pointed a finger at him, her eyes flashing danger. "No. _No more_. I specifically told you that Naruto should have stayed in the Village after that fiasco with the Sound, and now you've made a mess that involved someone who should have never been traveling with you in the first place. _Now you clean it up_ Jiraiya, or so help me I'll have you tried for insubordination and _exiled_."

Jiraiya crossed his arms across his chest. Either he was a subconscious genius at manipulating women into giving him what he wanted, or Tsunade was so angry she _wanted_ him to run head-long into a possible trap. "…Any idea _how_ I do any of this? Orochimaru was the genius out of all of us, and I don't think he'd be very…"

"Go to the Village of Steel and figure out what is going on. Then get your ass back here with answers."

Jiraiya took a moment to look at Tsunade. Really, really _look_ at her.

_Everything in its place, perfectly._

After a fashion, the platinum blonde smiled and pointed out the door.

"Go."

Even if she had said it in anger (or was it jest? Jiraiya never knew anymore with Tsunade), the toad-sannin was only too happy to oblige -- Naruto's life mattered more than petty grudges, and Jiraiya was far, far too tired to argue any longer.

XXX

To Be Continued

XXX


	3. Sons of a Battlecry

A/N: _Italics in large clumps_ denote flashbacks.

Tagline: (Timeskip) After an ambush from the Akatsuki sends Naruto to the hospital, Jiraiya is forced to examine where he went wrong. Can he make amends with his life, himself, and the man who betrayed them to save Naruto's life before it's too late?

XXX

Murder Mysteries

a Naruto fanfiction  
by Pridefall

Disclaimer: I own nothing except what is mine.

XXX

**Chapter 2 – Sons of a Battle Cry**  
_Fear? I know not fear. There are only moments of confusion. Some of them are deeply stamped on my memory and a few will haunt me forever._

- Hunter S. Thompson

XXX

**Sarutobi Jiraiya's Notes from the field, Day 1**

Day uneventful after meeting w/ Tsunade. Couldn't get any 'work' done b/c I'm on thin-ice as it is (sic: 1 screw-up certain death) so I tried to get some n-fo about the Steel before calling it a night. Got some clips of interesting rumors on the state of things since the village was established, but aside from the fact that it's demilitarized there isn't anything glaringly important there. Rest of night uneventful.

Scratch that. I woke up to the same nightmare this morning, though this time it wasn't Orochimaru killing the old man on top of the Hokage's monument. It was me. Not going to put too much thought into it or the ramifications b/c I probably had too much to drink last night anyway. Wish I could blame Tsunade for it even though I know I can't.

Though...

Shook the guilt off around mid-morning and caught a Bullet-Trans heading towards Steel at noon at Tsunade's b/hest (as in: she thought that it'd be best if I leave as early as possible. (At the threat of a 1-way route of pain, no doubt)). When I tried to say goodbye she wouldn't even speak to me, so. Yeah. Things aren't good. Shizune says she'll forgive me eventually, but only if I get my behind to the Steel (her words, not mine.)

Damn, does Tsu really want me out of the village that badly?

Probably.

Tried call her on the phone while in transit. It didn't go well. She's mad, I know, but...I've never heard her use so many old-tongue curses at someone who wasn't…You know what? Nevermind. It's best no to dwell on it.

…From what I hear, the Steel is one of the few villages in the region that's advanced enough in recent years and stayed uninvolved with the political civil-wars of the other villages to have Steam as a viable power source. What this means for the surrounding country-side and city itself, I have no idea yet, but the ride there was…interesting, to say the least -- especially after the Daimyo started complaining about how fast we were going.

(_Note_: Normally, on a good day the trains have to stop twice to cool down, which makes the trip last from around 4 hours to 6. Today not a good day, and some of the D.s got uppity around the 4th forced stop.) It looked like a fight would break out – which woulda been fuckin' hilarious – but the tech-heads had enough sense to tell the Ds "Either we stop or they explode. Easeh choice ta make, realeh."

Easeh choice indeed.

I couldn't sleep when I tried since the train was in transit, so I wondered what _exactly _Genzo could be doing alive in another part of the country. That Akatsuki member (Xexu? Zenon? Can't remember) lobotomized him during the Third Secret War, so I'm pretty sure he should be dead, right?

Could he be alive?

Don't think so.

Maybe.

Stranger things have happened…

We arrived at the Steel at around 10 (maybe 11?) and right now I'm busy doodling a little "I'm Sorry" picture for Tsunade as the rest of the passengers file out.

I'll guess I'll send it w/ my report and see if it helps any.

I hope it does. I mean, I know it _won't_, but I hope.

XXX

Though it looked bigger from inside of the train, as soon as Jiraiya took his first steps down the large granite ramp leading from the train station and into the town, he was immediately hit by the fact that The Village of Steel, quite-surprisingly, was _not_ the bustlingmetropolis he had pictured in his mind.

"Well…" he started, stepping over a man sleeping on the middle of the sidewalk. "…Fuck me sideways. Technology _lies_ about its own grandeur."

From what he could tell from what he saw of the city from inside the train, the Village of Steel was divided into four large, asymmetrical levels. The tallest buildings, most of them iron spires that spewed black smoke into the sky or high-rise apartment complexes that punched into the sky, comprised the factorial and higher-residential districts of the city, while the lower buildings that supported them formed the other districts.

Jiraiya guessed that these gargantuan spires were the richest sections of the city by the way they naturally towered over everything else around them, standing clean and immaculate while overhanging and under-hanging what, if he could read the signs and posters right, appeared to be shopping malls that stuck out from their midsections like odd-shaped ticks.

"…Strange."

He craned his neck as he walked, trying to take in the sights like some kind of tourist while he pondered what madman could have planned such a city. The almost rustic look of the ground-floor buildings was endearing, at first, but the further he went into the city, the more it clashed with the way it was built.

'_What's the point of having such tall buildings? This is the River country, right?_'

Most of the ground-floor buildings didn't even reach higher than a story or two, but the way they were placed in relation to their neighbors made each seem larger; bigger; more menacing when they towered over him; more innocent when the light that came from inside spilt out onto the street and cast the reflections of those inside everywhere the light could reach.

It was almost artistic, in away -- distracting and not structurally sound, of course, because the lowlands were known for having earthquakes and flashfloods; but artistic all the same.

"Madman or genius, I suppose."

On some level, part of him admired the crazy amount of ingenuity it took for someone to think like this. Cities built such as the Steel could just keep building up and up instead of outwards, opening up hundreds of different possibilities for over-populated countries or island-cities.

Another part of him, however, and this was the part of himself that he hated, had a headache.

If the city had no boundary but the sky, then who, or what, dictated who lived where?

'_Okay, so following the laws of pompous bastards, naturally we have the nobles living high, high above me and middle-class…Well, they might live slightly lower, but even then that's still just as high…So…where would the red light district be?'_

The way the buildings were grouped together gave the Steel a rather…uneven look; a mixture of both strength and weakness. Nothing seemed situated by any real design, but by need and space, and intermixed between the two predominant build-types – spire and complex – were, what seemed to Jiraiya, the only buildings in the city that weren't planned for when the Village was first built.

'_Well lookit that_.'

Shanty towns.

The mark of big business, a growing economy, and an amount of prosperity that wasn't available for everyone else.

'_Okay, so now that we've located the out-of-luck men and women who live here…'_

He made his way through streetlamps that cast shadows on the sidewalks, haloing passerby while neon signs and signposts bathed everything in a greasy, almost darkened glow, casting an even more uneven illusion on the world.At the ground-floor of the city, everything was different -- darker, even though there was light; dirtier, even though not twenty feet above them stood marvels of architectural genius.

'…_So where is that blasted red light district!'_

Dingy hovels and honey-comb shaped tenements lined the streets flanked by open markets and alleyways that spread away from them like crooked, grime-covered veins in every direction. Jiraiya grew dizzy trying to map them inside of his head and began to stick to the main roads after a fashion, trusting his sense of direction more than his luck.

As he walked through (and found himself in) what seemed to be the poorest district yet – while both suppressing his urge to summon a toad and just breeze his way on through it and thinking all the while about how on earth the _entire _ground floor of a city could be a single district -- Jiraiya felt the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly begin to rise.

'_Okay, wait_. _Common sense, tingling_.'

He turned around – slowly, so as to not look like a moron – and was greeted by the sight of soot-covered men and women trying to hide the fact that they were staring at him, from him.

'…_Okay, if I'm not mistaken…' _Jiraiya took a look at his surroundings and then frowned. For all of its major facades and polishing, the Steel was still a small town on the verge of becoming a city, and like every small city-town, its people were very suspicious of new-comers. Meaning that if they weren't playing at pretending he didn't exist, then they just outright glared at him and wished he would leave. _'I am not wanted here.'_

Sensing, perhaps imminent danger – or at least more discomfort if the people grew violent enough to want to physically hurt him -- Jiraiya quickly retreated down a promising road to his left (even though he didn't actually know where he was going) and hurriedly marked down somewhere in the back of his mind that the southern half of the city was not a place he wanted to be in.

'…_Well I suppose even the most advanced of places can have a poor district they want to hide, in retrospect.' _

'_Floor. Street. Whatever.'_

'_Just means they gotta have a red light district too_.'

'…'

'_Okay, so I'm lost_.'

He walked towards an apparently homeless man lying down on a half-broken tatama-mat in the middle of the street and presented him with three Ryou. "Can you tell me the way to the nearest tavern?"

The man hiccupped, took the Ryou, and then gave Jiraiya an entirely too hostile gaze. Jiraiya kept his mouth shut, and squared his shoulders.

"…Who're you? A shinobi? Neva' seen yer kind about these parts."

Jiraiya shrugged and gave the man three more Ryou. "I'm just stranger."

The man grinned a crooked, holey smile. "Best to keep it that way, mate. With the way things are goin' around here…Well…" He considered his next words and then pointed down a street to Jiraiya's left, shaking his head: "Nevermind. Tavern's that way. Move along."

Jiraiya did as he was told, filing away what he had just learned. Even if the village wasn't all that large, part of him could already see that the Steel was on its way to becoming like every other big city in the world – a whorehouse where everyone was a slut that belonged to a differently priced room.

'_Speaking of whores, though…'_

As he reached the end of the street, he caught sight of the (apparently) vibrant night-life of the city; spotting drug-abusers and whores standing side-by-side with nobles and teenagers looking for an easy fix, all of them outlined in dull, red light.

He'd arrived.

'_Okay, either that girl is inspecting that guy's belt-buckle for deficiencies or I'm getting closer to where I want to be now_.'

The red light district, and a rather newly set-up one at that. '_Yakuza near the lights, gangs in the allies, and people on the streets like fish surrounded by sharks. S'good to be home.'_

He stopped at the steps of the tavern he would be staying in for the night and looked towards the horizon; his eyes reflecting the last vestiges of sunlight leaving the world until the coming dawn. No one had tried to rob or approach him as he walked, but he knew that everyone was watching him.

'…_Well, better get to work_.'

He could smell the sea far off in the distance, and though as a child he loved the sea, right now, tired as he was, it wasn't as comforting as he thought it should be.

XXX

_He can smell the sea in the distance._

_Gamakichi leaps headlong over the cliff, his arms failing for stability as a blast of steaming water from (…his partner has called him Kisame?) threatens to overtake the seventeen foot tall toad-nin in a deluge of H2O that parts the trees, parts the ground, and sears the air as if it was heated by the fires of hell itself. _

_The Nuke-nin who created it rides the wave like a professional, rising up through the swell and cutting through the break of the wave. He makes hand symbols Jiraiya can't see, and opens his mouth as a torrential hail of water-shaped bullets is suddenly expunged from his throat._

_Sickening but effective._

_Naruto stumbles tail-first after his summon, curses and kunai flying as both toad and rider go down in metaphorical flames. The Mist-Nin rides his jutsu towards the edge of the cliff, laughing and roaring a sound somewhere between water crashing on rocks and steam escaping a sulfur vent, his face a smirk of animalistic pride, his mouth open in a tight snarl, and his mummified sword raised high for the killing strike._

"_MEGALA-"_

_Jiraiya may have been slow react to danger, but he would not let Naruto bear the brunt of his mistakes. Gamabunta lands in the clearing with just enough time to intervene, his tongue bursting through the tidal wave of water directly beneath the Mist-nin and splitting it in twine. Jiraiya launches himself off of the Boss-Toad's skull once he gets his footing, lands on top of the suddenly inertia-less Mist-Nin's raised sword and stamps an explosive-note on it all in one fluid motion, not even pausing to see what happens as a column of fire blossoms behind him and pushes him forward even faster._

"_GRAB ON TO SOMETHING!"_

_The explosion gives Gamakichi enough leg-room to maneuver from off the side of the cliff, but it doesn't give Naruto the second he needs to find his feet again. Instead, Jiraiya watches, horrified, as the blast pushes him _**off**_ the cliff._

"_NARUTO!"_

_Jiraiya is falling, his hand outstretched and his mind racing. Naruto is screaming, forcing air from his lungs faster than he can fall, and Jiraiya knows that if he does not reach him in time that the fall will kill the young teenager._

"_NARUTO!"_

_The blonde snaps out of whatever fear was holding him and tries to swim up through the air, his fingertips barely brushing against Jiraiya's…_

"_Heyheyheyhey there mister!"_

…_And then the third Akatsuki member, the one he couldn't sense because, fuck, he didn't _know why_, makes his appearance with as much subtlety as a baseball bat to the face; coming right for Jiraiya by vaulting _up_ the cliff instead of falling _down_ it, his form little more than a multitonal blur as he grabs Naruto and launches himself _off_ the blonde and _towards_ Jiraiya. _

"_I got somethin' for ya!"_

_The spiral-masked Nuke-nin is _fast_**Abhorrently**__so. And just as Jiraiya completes his Doton jutsu and a boulder-sized chunk of the cliff-face dislodges from its resting place to reform as a protective wall in front of him, several birds slam into the side of the cliff and _**explode **_with the force of a small bag of hand-grenades going off. Jiraiya is left blinking through the dust and debris, half-blind and deaf, as a boot crashes its way past his promptly made-and-then-destroyed earth-shield and slams into his chest with enough force to send him skyward._

"_Ofh!"_

"_Byebye!"_

_He coughs out blood somewhere between soaring ten feet upwards (backwards?) and catching a hold on the side of the cliff again. The Nuke-nin is falling down backwards, waving at him with a gloved hand and gaining ground Jiraiya does not need him to gain. _

_At this rate, he'll reach Naruto first. At this rate, Jiraiya will fail the child again._

'_Keep smiling twerp, I'll fucking rip your eyes out.'_

_It doesn't matter. _**Only****Naruto matters**. _Jiraiya leaps off the cliff-face hoping that gravity is faster than whatever infernal bloodline propelled his opponent – no one that young-sounding should've been able to move that fast. No one. – and his quick decision-making is promptly rewarded._

"_Get the FUCK away from me!"_

_Albeit in an unexpected way._

_There is a flash of light and the sound of an unraveling sirocco. Naruto's Rasengan catches the spiral-faced Nuke-nin just as the running shinobi nears him, and even though from the angle he's at Jiraiya can't exactly see what happens between them, it only takes millisecond for the Nuke-nin to _**stop** _so abruptly that every bone in his body has to break. _

_"...Ow."_

_It takes less than _**that**_ for his entire body to rotate to the _**left**, _hold somewhere in the _**center**, _and then spiral out towards_ **right** _in a flash of sapphire erubescence that leaves Jiraiya blind for the second time since the fight began._

_When he can see again, Jiraiya's eyes widen._

_The Nuke-nin doesn't so much as explode, but vaporize._

'_Holy…'_

_His eyes meet Naruto's._

_The blonde smiles. Raises him a victory sign._

_Then, his eyes flutter close._

'_FUCK!'_

_Jiraiya runs as fast as the steepness of the cliff will allow him to – half-sprinting, half-leaping. The rocks at the bottom of the cliff are getting closer and closer, stabbing upwards out of the sea like the teeth of some infernal demon hungry for the prey about to fall into his mouth._

_If he doesn't make it…_

_If he doesn't make it…_

_Fuck that._

_He __**would**__ make it._

_Jiraiya smiles a grim smile as he can feel his desperation take hold of his legs and make him move _that_ much faster. He's close now, and can see Naruto's falling form. Can almost reach his foot and grab hold. He'll save him. Goddammit he would _**save the idiot**

'_Just a little farther. Just…a little…farther…'_

_He stretches out his hands, he's so close._

'_Damn you kid, don't you dare die on me!'_

"_Hey, what you did to Tobi wasn't cool, hn." And then the infuriating voice of another Akatsuki brat crashes around his eyes and everything goes to hell. Something whirls by him faster than he can blink, a blur of orange and crème who's speed buffest him sideways. Jiraiya has no time to stop the newest Akatsuki member. He can only put as much chakra as he can into his hair and hope that it'll stop the attack he knows is coming._

"_Let's try to remedy that, eh?" _

_Something explodes at his chest, searing heat and numbing cold reaching through the tendrils of his iron tresses all at the same time. Jiraiya tumbles forward, losing his grip for only a moment, his eyes locking on the Nuke-nin as its mount rounds about and makes its way towards him for a second run._

_He unfurls a scroll in one fluid movement, making sure that as it opens its directed away from him. There is a moment where he thinks nothing will happen; that this delay will cause him to lose Naruto and lose the fight, but then the Akatsuki member rushes straight into Jiraiya's trap and his scroll explodes to a satisfying cry of: "ARGH! Shit! Shit!"_

_Hundreds of fireballs stream towards what Jiraiya thinks looks like a children's rendition of a bird, peppering its underside and burning through its false-flesh; hopefully buying Jiraiya enough time._

"_Get the FUCK out of my way you worthless little cunt-stain!"_

_His sandal collides with the thing's underside, cracking what feels like hardened clay as he pushes himself through the fake-bird using its neck for quasi-leverage. With a colossal groan, he breaks _**through**_it and out the other side; only a small part of him registering that the Akatsuki member isn't riding its steed anymore. _

_Fuck it. He's almost lost Naruto twice now and he isn't going to let anyone else get in his way._

"_KID, WAKE UP!"_

_The rocks keep getting _**closer**.

_"NARUTO!"_

_He's not gaining any speed._

_'Nonononono.'_

_Jiraiya won't have it._

_"__**NARUTO**__!"_

_Claws the size of his arm clamp down around his waist and pull him skywards, and Uzumaki Naruto slips forever out of his reach._

"_No. No! GET THE FUCK OFF ME!"_

_He keeps rising. Rising, and rising, and rising faster than he can speak. _

_Naruto becomes nothing more than a speck of orange and black surrounded by blue; then disappears amongst the waves._

"_Oh well, yeah?"_

_There's nothing else he can do. _

_No one else he can protect._

'_Kid…'_

_The realization will hit much, much harder later, but now._

'…_Kid I'm sorry.'_

_Now nothing else matters. _

_Nothing._

_At._

All.

_He charges chakra into his hands…_

"_Hold on tight old man. I'm gonna drop you nice and hard, yeah."_

…_and _**rams** _them into the fake-bird's legs._

"_Hey, hey! You can't do that!"_

_Jiraiya free-falls as the Akatsuki member's ride careens into the tree tops. Gamabunta catches the Sannin without fanfare, and then stonily says: "There will be time to mourn, my friend."_

_Jiraiya nods, his heart in his throat, and leaps off of the toad-boss's head. "There always is, isn't there?"_

_Gamabunta says nothing. _

_Jiraiya, chakra screaming through his veins, slides into a fighting stance as the Akatsuki members surrounded him. _´…_No more mourning_,' _he thinks, his eyes locking on to the darkening horizon as chakra twists and lashes at the sky and the ground, lacerating the earth like zanbatou cutting through soft, malleable flesh._

'…_This is where I stand, and this is where they __**fall**__.'_

_He would make sure that the four Akatsuki members remembered how brightly the Rasengan shone on that night until the very day they died. Of this, more than anything else in his life, there would be no compromise._

XXX

To Be Continued

XXX


End file.
